Disclaimer: Do you expect me to talk?
No, I expect World of Warcraft and Naruto to become mine!
Fool…it will never happen!
Then I expect you to die!
Here's the next installment of The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!
Below the deck of Matthias' creaking old zeppelin Golbarn sat alone in his room, staring at nothing but his own two hands.
They were big and green, hard and strong and lined with scars and bony calluses from all the swordplay he did, the fingers thick as kodo sausages tipped with clawed nails that he could use in a pinch if his blade abandoned him (for, what were they if not natural blades?) The knuckles, hard and worn and rock-like, which could break bones as easily as bread.
He scowled at himself, scowled at his hands. He could count the fresh scars.
Was he a fool?
He ought to be disgusted with himself; he ought to feel violated and ashamed—did that mean he was a fool, or a psychopath? For, who but a fool or a psychopath would even consider the feelings of something that his people had warred against for generations, these flighty creatures who were governed by their females and treated life as infinite and boring. Beings who had more in common with trees than with him. Creatures that had not endured suffering but only comfort and longevity, growing so used to life that some of them would never be able to give it up.
And yet he still cared for one.
He started up, the rage heating up again. Why did he care? What was it that drove him? It was not for his lord, not for Warchief Thrall, that he knew. The Warchief had always been like a god to him, ever since his youth. Nothing could stop a juggernaut like Lord Thrall, not even this. He'd find some way out, some way to stop it. So why had Golbarn lied to the boy about his reasons for going, about his urgency, when in his heart and soul he would never believe that Thrall could be contained?
Her.
Why her?
She meant something to him, something he didn't understand. It wasn't romantic love; nothing that pointless or fragile. It meant something more, and he didn't know why. The time he'd spent with her seemed negligible: a meeting, a few days of creeping through the alleys of Orgrimmar, and a battle that had lasted all of fifteen minutes from beginning to end, with him fleeing in disgrace to warn a bunch of humans that against his better judgment he still believed could help. But he had fought alongside her before and it hadn't resulted in this feeling.
He remembered her face so well in those final few moments. It was not a look he was accustomed to having directed at him, especially from an elf. It looked wrong to him, and he hadn't quite understood it until he'd thought about it, until he'd compared it to the faces of fallen allies. It was curious that it was the same. Why did a night elf's face look so similar to an orc's? Why was that expression the same?
And why did she trust him so much?
Was this what the boy felt? Once he thought he'd understood the boy, but he really didn't. Was this what made the boy fight so fiercely, for creatures that did not mean anything to him, for people who had scorned him, made him endure pains and horrors far worse than anything that he would've experienced otherwise? Did the boy see what Golbarn had only just seen, did the boy see that same thing in every race that existed, despite their differences?
It must be.
He sat back down again, and looked once more at his hands. Though brutal, scarred, hard and huge, they were strong too, and warm. He closed them, looked at all of them, and marveled a little.
Strong.
They could protect her. Defeat her enemies. Rescue her. They could rescue a friend.
The word had never applied to anything until now. Allies were one thing. A friend was something so much more. She was no longer a night elf, not really. The bonds had been broken, the histories forgotten.
They were friends.
Friends that he'd protect.
Or die.
-------
Neera was about to die.
She stumbled through the alleyways, sweat running down her face into her eyes, blinding her, making the world as jumbled, chaotic and restless as she felt, darkening the alleyways, blurring the figures of drunks and trash piles until they were indistinguishable from each other, making the world tilt, swivel and distort with each step, each breath.
He's coming he's coming he's coming, where, where, WHERE? She stumbled around, staring wildly. She slipped and landed in a pile of trash—or a drunk, they both smelled the same at any rate, and were about as useful as each other, especially if they were fucking orcs. She got up, spitting, her mouth full of rotting meat and stinking as bad as any bum, furious at her foolishness. She couldn't afford to slip now, not when he was right there!
She turned and ran, or tried to, but her legs were weak and like jelly, and when she looked down they wiggled and made funny sounds, and abruptly her anger and desperation turned to amusement as she kicked her legs out, watching them dance like worms, until she kicked both at the same time, forgetting that she still subscribed to most of the world's natural laws, and fell in a heap near the trash again. The anger returned, and she cursed the drunk for tripping her and would've killed him before she realized he'd come even closer than before, and then her fear and desperation took over her, drove her back deeper into the alleyway, stumbling as fast as she could.
She hooked around a corner and saw Teldrassil in the distance, and sighed in relief and rushed towards it. She ran into a wall, nearly breaking her nose, and the tree sang with laughter at her foolishness and told her she was going the wrong way.
She turned and started back, but Teldrassil was gone.
He was back.
Neera screamed, horrified, backing away up until she hit the wall. She tried to keep going, but there was nowhere to go to, so she stood up and told him to fuck off and leave her alone, she had better things to do that listen to a fucking tree who didn't even look like a tree anyways!
Where were they?
She looked around, suddenly feeling that they were close. She looked up, saw them, and pointed at the figure.
"GET HIM!"
They didn't move. Naruto smiled and shook his head, laughing a little before wandering off. Lady Shandris asked her to wash her hands. Lady Tyrande was busy on the toilet and was studiously ignoring Neera. Kira was singing somewhere, but Neera couldn't see her, only hear her sweet voice, tantalizing, beautiful but singing of things that Neera didn't understand, or would never have.
All the while he walked closer, with that little smile of his, the glassy doll-eyes, the milky-smooth face. He didn't speak, no taunting here. Just silent, clickety-clacking like a puppet dancing before a crowd, a caricature of a man, with only a human smile and those unsympathetic, greedy, glassy eyes.
The eyes of a man.
Neera curled up, now crying again, wondering why they weren't coming down to help her, wondering why the world was like this, wondering why, oh why, she had become friends with humans and orcs and trolls, when she had always been told not to.
"The black Horde came, and the world was from then on shadow."
So it was true, she thought, as he stopped over her again, all mist and shadows, still smiling but no longer really there, still clickety-clacking, but ever more silently.
The world would always be shadow.
She began to laugh, even as the spectre faded away and the silence of the alley overcame her once again.
------
"That back there, Naruto…" The wind almost whipped Sakura's words away, but Naruto just barely caught them before they soared past into the great blue. He glanced at her, flushing unconsciously, finding her green eyes regarding him intensely.
"Yeah?"
"You were pretty surprising." The note of approval, Naruto noticed, felt a little different and he wondered what else she meant by it. He decided not to pry, and just shrugged.
"I suppose," he said. He hadn't really thought about it, as he often did. Though he thought more nowadays in general, he hardly felt justified in thinking much about this outburst as compared to all the rest he'd had in his life. He felt a little foolish for doing it, but he didn't regret it.
"Seriously," she said, raising an eyebrow and leaning a bit closer, reminding Naruto of her scent and the softness of her lips. "I mean, you've had self-righteous and rather wise outbursts before, but that was different."
"How?" he said, blushing.
"You sounded," she fought for words, frowning for a moment, and then: "Cool. Like someone who knew exactly what to do, exactly what the situation called for. Before you sounded like a bratty kid who hit the nail on the head where the situation was concerned through sheer accident of words…"
"Thanks," Naruto mumbled, though it was sort of true that when he had yelled, he hadn't really known what was going to result of it, he'd just spoken what he'd felt, what was in his heart. This time had been different—by just a little—but different enough for him to realize that he'd said something that hadn't fallen on deaf ears.
"But seriously," Sakura said again, her smile playfully light, her eyes shining with something like approval. "It was really amazing. You sounded like a totally different person, as if a Hokage had possessed your body for a few moments and had spoken for you."
"I kind of just said stuff," he said, with a shrug. "What I felt, but I guess I said it in a way that was different from normal. I've heard Kira-chan speak like it a lot, you know, and all the other leaders too. They're good at telling people what to do…really good."
"You are as well, it seems."
He blushed a little harder this time, but couldn't stop himself from grinning at her praise. It happened so rarely—though more and more these days—that he couldn't help it. He shrugged again and let his eyes get swept back into the view of the sky, and they were both quiet for a time. Calm spread throughout his chest and he relaxed, feeling as light as the air that surrounded them, and as strong as the wind that blew past them, sweeping his and her hair like flowing liquid and tearing passionately at their clothes.
"Sakura-chan…" he said finally, and glancing at her and finding that she hadn't once looked away. "Erm…"
"What?"
"About the other night…"
"Ah," she said, shrugging. "Don't worry about it."
"Eh?"
"It was just an experiment."
"Experiment?"
"Yeah. I wanted to see what it was like."
He blinked, and waited, feeling a little confused but also a little hopeful. "What was it like?"
She grinned at him in that annoying way that girls did when they had a secret to tell, but wouldn't do under pain of death. "You probably already know the answer."
"Do not."
"It's the same as yours, probably."
He blushed. "That good, then?"
She shrugged. "Yep."
"Ah," he said, and turned again to avoid being seen with such a red face. "Good."
"Did you kiss Kira?"
Why do girls always go for the hard questions?
"…Yeah." He shifted a little, feeling a little guilty for some reason. He'd kissed her first after all, and that was unspoken agreement, wasn't it? He wondered if she'd hit him, or if she'd do something worse, like cry and glare at him or—
"Good."
Again, he blinked. "W-what was that?"
She rolled her eyes. "Good. I'm glad you didn't mess that up or anything."
"Whaddya mean?"
"She really likes you," Sakura said. "Really, really likes you. That was probably the last chance you'd get for a while to be totally normal with her, or even with her at all…and you made it memorable for her as well."
"Memorable?" He parroted. "You're not angry?"
She smiled a little. "Kind of, but that's not really the point. I can't be angry especially since both me and her have an agreement that I think we both intend to uphold."
"Agreement?"
The smile appeared again, but this time she said nothing. Still confused, but nonetheless relieved she wasn't upset, Naruto dropped the subject. He might not understand girls, but life would be extremely boring without them.
"Do you think Kakashi-sensei is on his way back now?" Sakura asked, following Naruto's eyes into the blue.
"He might be," Naruto said, with a shrug. "I'm betting he's gonna be late, though, since he's late to everything."
"Probably," she said, laughing. "I do wish I'd been there, though…"
"At Gai-sensei's funeral?"
"Mm."
"Yeah," Naruto said, quietly. "But I've had enough of those for one lifetime."
She smiled, and nodded a little. "I suppose. He was really amazing, Gai-sensei. I hope Lee-kun is okay now…"
"Fuzzy brows'll be fine," Naruto said, nodding to himself. "He's strong." He was a hard-worker like Naruto. He knew how to take pain and loss, because he'd dealt with it before. "I wonder what Kakashi-sensei told him about Gai-sensei though."
"Probably a lot. I don't think Gai-sensei gave away much of his past."
"It'd be interesting to hear about it…"
"Yeah."
Another pause.
"Do you think Sai, Yamato-sensei and Ero-sennin will find anything at Dalaran?" The word sounded funny to him, and it was strangely difficult to pronounce despite being in a language quite close to his own. The three of them had said that they'd make for the walled-off city to see what they could turn up about Akatsuki. Jiraiya had already sent a toad back to Gnomeregan with an update on their current activities.
"Hard to say," Sakura said. "If they do, it might simply be a group of angry mages. Kira-chan told me a lot about them."
"Did she?"
"I've read something of them as well. Some of the most powerful people in the world were among their ranks. If Akatsuki somehow is working with them, or has taken them over…"
"Then they're much stronger than we thought."
"Yeah," she said. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "But I already knew that."
Naruto glanced at her. He knew what had happened in the cave when they'd been attempting to rescue Gaara, but she hadn't spoken much of it. Whatever horrors this Sasori had conjured up it was enough to make Sakura bold enough to take him on, but terrified of his power. She didn't speak of it but her eyes grew erratic when she spoke of the experience.
"We're both gonna be there, you know," he said. "Don't be like me."
"Like you?"
"Rush in and get your ass kicked. It happens to me a lot…" He scratched his head and gave her a foolish smile. She smiled a little back, and seemed to calm down a little, for her eyes grew softer and her smile less forced.
"I won't be that stupid," she said, and her eyes smiled a little more. He almost sighed in relief.
"Good," said Naruto, nodding automatically, settling the matter and bringing silence upon them for a time again.
"Is Tsuwabuki alright?" Sakura asked.
He thought for a second. "Yeah, fine. Getting her ears scratched."
"You don't take her much on trips."
"To be honest, I don't like to," Naruto said, quietly. "She knows that, too. I like having somebody back that I can contact when I want that's near Kira. And it's hard to fight with her sometimes, she's really got a mind of her own. We're not that much like Kiba and Akamaru, you could say."
"I've noticed," Sakura said, smiling. "She's as independent as any fox should be."
He nodded. "It works, though. I fight better on my own, most of the time."
"And she doesn't like fighting much, does she?"
"Not particularly," Naruto said. "She enjoys sitting around, getting pampered more." He grinned. "It's good, 'cause I can experience some of it as well."
Squatting suddenly, Naruto sighed. "It's pretty cold out here."
"Yeah," she said. "Wanna go inside?"
"I do," he mumbled, "but that's the problem."
"What is?"
"If I go inside, I'm gonna have to play cards with Matthias again. I don't like it. He cheats."
"You're just bad at cards." She smirked.
"Am not!"
"Your brain's too small." She laughed, impishly, as he looked crestfallen in mock despair, and laughed even harder when a strong gust of wind knocked him on his side and a sudden lurching of the zeppelin made him smack against the railing.
She stopped laughing when the zeppelin gave a dangerous tilt, swinging so far that Naruto nearly slid off the edge.
---------
There's no way we can do it, Shikamaru thought, for the thousandth time that day. There's no way we can tell.
And there wasn't. Any number of factors could be at play here. In some respects it was like shogi, only you didn't know which pieces your opponent held, or even how many pieces he might have. There could be countless numbers of them—the entire Council could be a part of it; or there could be just one, and that'd be just as hard. Magni's advisors had numbered in the hundreds at one point—he'd had no formal council or even any personal guards, being too proud to even think of it, and too righteous to burdening his people with his own life. He'd protect what was his and what was there's. That was what a true king did.
Yet, Shikamaru knew that they'd need more than just Berlyiro. Hence why the Council had to be reformed. He had to choose from among the Dwarven nobles who thought themselves worthy of being Thauraan's protector and guide, for being his right and left hands and his eyes and ears.
And at least one of them was a traitor.
He'd thought about it from all possible angles, but that was one of his curses—there were too many angles. The traitor could be someone who had been closest to Magni, or it could've been someone nobody would've expected; somebody with keen ears and quick feet and a means of contacting Akatsuki without leaving Ironforge. There could be so many of them that both such categories could be possible and that would mean that if he outed one the others would revolt. What he didn't have was manpower, and nor did he have any means of protecting a king who had no means of protecting himself.
What he did have was the enmity of nearly every dwarf that stood before him now.
It was not hard to see why. They were jealous of his position at Thauraan's right side—a human, helping a dwarfish king decide who was to be his advisors. Probably some of them had the idea that he was already one of Thauraan's advisors.
Why the hell were things always so troublesome?
He cleared his throat, and then glanced once at Berlyiro. The old dwarf stood to the left of Thauraan's throne: a great heavy black thing that had been redesigned for Thauraan specifically. Iron and Dark Iron forced together, capped in bronze and silver with the hammers of Ironforge for arm rests. It was too big for him now, but he'd likely grow into it comfortably, even though it was hardly bigger than a normal chair.
Berlyiro looked at him through one eye, but didn't move otherwise, or change his expression. Shikamaru took that to mean it had already begun.
Fine, he thought. He turned and addressed the audience—a hundred or so grizzled Dwarven battle commanders, explorers, metalworkers and the privileged few who mined gold and silver and diamonds in the lands scattered across Dun Morogh.
"Right," he said. "I've been asked to choose between all of you."
They bristled visibly, though it was more like rocks shifting on a cliff, teetering dangerously near the edge. That image stuck, so he cleared his throat again and said more respectfully, closing his face and keeping his mind devoid of the nervous thoughts that flittered through them. He was good at that.
"Choose which ones of you are the best suited to this job, the best suited to protecting a king."
Somebody spat something in Dwarvish that Shikamaru didn't understand. Berlyiro shouted something, and they quieted.
"I'm aware," he said again, louder this time, "that you don't believe I should be here."
There was silence, but once again the rocks shifted.
"I shouldn't, in all honesty," he said. "I wouldn't be here either, if it weren't for the fact that your king has asked me to help choose—he for some reason thinks I'd be a good enough judge of character to weed out the traitor among you."
So perhaps he shouldn't have said it so bluntly, but Shikamaru had never really bothered to play the game of social conventions and ceremony, so he didn't mind kicking the rocks over the edge and watching the crowd tumble into heated chaos—roaring and spitting and snarling in two different languages (it was hard to tell them apart, with some) while Berlyiro shouted order, and eventually received it as well after a few minutes of harsh swearing in Dwarvish (Shikamaru wasn't sure it was swearing, but it sounded harsh enough to be it).
The crowd now seemed restless, bristling like a tightly wound cat preparing to pounce. Shikamaru took a few more moments of silence to gather himself and form what he was going to say, choosing for the more tactical, and less incendiary, route this time.
"Yes, traitor. I'm quite sure you'll all agree on that." He looked around. "There is no way those two monsters could have gotten inside Ironforge—which they clearly did, for guards on the outside and the inside of the tram station had been slain. They clearly didn't come from outside. The only way, then, two humans," he thought a moment, and reconsidered: "humanoids, could have entered by simply walking straight through Ironforge without being noticed or stopped or questioned. I'm sure everyone was doing their jobs that day—everyone was on alert, especially since their king had gone away to a foreign land." He stopped, and began to amble again, back and forth in front of his slowly quieting audience. Their memories quieted their anger, softened it, made them listen as he continued.
"Thus, I'm sure if they had been seen, they would've been stopped, questioned or at least recalled by somebody. Since nobody did recall seeing these brutes, nobody did stop them, or question them, then that means somebody let them in, took them in a very roundabout route through the city so that they were not seen, or if they were, it was only by those who didn't particularly care. They were taken to the tram station," here his eyes razored through the crowd, now silent, "where they proceeded to murder the honest, dutiful dwarves protecting their king's route home, and then their—your—king himself. Brutally." Shikamaru stopped. He stared, quiet, and they stared back, even quieter.
"A traitor, then," he said. "A traitor to a group of humans, as well. Or shinobi, if you could call us humans." He cocked his head to the side. "So you can understand why I was brought in, then. I've experience in outing traitors. I'm good at it."
That was a lie, of course, but Shikamaru was pretty good at lying. And they believed him, too. He was good at knowing when he was believed or not, too, and he could see them.
They believed.
"So I'll find him, or her for that matter, and we'll settle this once and for all." Her looked about. "Any questions?"
---------
"Naruto!" Sakura latched on to Naruto's flailing hand as the zeppelin careened sideways, the sound of splintering wood and the roar of flames and flashes of light and the smell of burnt wood and chemicals aflame, of coal and smoke. She pulled him up with ease, and he latched on with chakra to the wood, pulling himself to his feet.
But the zeppelin didn't keep them there for long. It rocked and sailed, twisting violently as a second explosion shattered the bow and released the balloon's tethers. The whole cabin tipped back, people and objects falling into the whistling blue.
Matthias exploded up from the stairwell, a look of maddened rage on his face. He was shouting something to the people behind him, shouting at them to move as he went aside and began to free the life-chutes strapped to the side of the cabin. People—his own, and the shinobi he carried—spilled out onto the deck, some roaring and screaming, others deathly calm.
"GO!" Matthias bellowed, shoving life-chutes into their hands. "ABANDON SHIP!"
The other zepplineers began to aid in the process, shoving life-chutes into the hands of their comrades and their passengers. Hinata was first, then Shino and Kiba and then Ino and Chouji and Neji and Tenten, and Golbarn last of all.
"GO!" Matthias bellowed. "AWAY! The ground is beneath us, go, GO!" He looked to Naruto and Sakura, and as the zeppelin began to fall, the air rushing down instead of past, the howling mixing with the cracking of the zeppelin's chassis coming apart around them, he somehow managed to reach them and thrust two chutes into their arms.
"Go," he growled. "I don't abandon somethin' I've worked for my entire life." It was as if he knew what Naruto had been about to say. The blonde looked at him wildly, swallowing, feeling a rush of fear as something he'd loved dearly since he'd first experienced it gave way to destruction. The feeling of flying free felt so different that Naruto could hardly process what the man was saying until the chute had been put on him and he'd been pushed near the ledge that waited to take him and all the rest.
The wind in his hair, on his skin, the howling that it made as it rushed past…
It was never so terrifying.
He glanced back at Matthias. The man was grinning, as always.
The fear fell away, focus returned. Naruto grinned back.
"FUCK THAT!" Naruto roared, biting his thumb.
'Kuchiyose no jutsu'
The zeppelin exploded in the ensuing flash of dead, grey smoke, from which emerged a screeching horror that caught all of the survivors on its hairy, rotting back.
'WHAT IS THIS? WHAT, WHAT? YOU AGAIN, YOU? BOY? WHY HAVE YOU CALLED ME, WHY AGAIN?"
Despite its screeching protest, Lacurad the giant bat dipped into the sinking pile of smoke and fire and snatched the falling crew, its captain, and its passengers in a single swoop before it flew up and the zeppelin that had once been a home and a life to Matthias and his crew was torn down until it was no more than formless smoke far below.
Twisting up, the giant bat leveled off, screeching angrily while its new occupants stumbled about in numb confusion, offset by its frightening speed and callous movements. Naruto stood at its head, firmly affixed with chakra, shouting at the beast to slow down so that nobody would fall off.
"YOU CALL ME, THEN ORDER ME? ORDER ME? YOU ARE NOT MY MISTRESS, NOTHING OF THE SORT, WHY DO YOU PRESUME, PRESUME!"
"Oi!" Naruto roared, "just shut up! If Old lady Sylvanas were here, she'd tell you to shut up and do what you're told, you big fat rat!"
"RAT? RAT? HOW DARE YOU, HUMAN! HOW DARE YOU?"
"Just shut up!" Twisting, Naruto observed the others. "Is everyone al—"
He reeled, Matthias' fist colliding so hard with his face that even the chakra didn't keep him from hitting the rippling smelly floor beneath them. He looked up, eyes wide, half-angry, half-stunned.
"You bloody little brat," Matthias growled. "You stupid little wanker. Who told you to save us?" His eyes smoldered like the ruins of his zeppelin, his speech spewing spittle down his beard. "What gives you that bloody right?"
"What the hell are you—"
"That was our life," the zeppelineer said. "Our life just went down. What's the point of bein' here when our life is gone?"
"It's a fucking zeppelin!" Naruto snarled, getting to his feet, throwing his face close to Matthias'. "Get a new one."
"You bloody, fucking little brat!" Matthias roared. "I don't want a new one! It don' work like that, not at all! That was me greatest treasure, irreplaceable, you can't get anything like that! Not again!" he shoved Naruto back, but the boy barely moved this time. It made him angrier.
"Stop it," Sakura cried. "It's not important right now, we need to figure out—" She stopped, something catching her eye. In the endless blue, among the clouds, it was almost impossible to see it, and that was probably why it had taken them by such surprise. She turned, looking closely, she saw it—floating among the clouds was a great, white bird, not like anything she'd ever—
Hang on. Her eyes adjusted, and she squinted against the roaring wind. That was—!
She turned, "Naruto! It's Akats—"
The third explosion of the day tore a sizeable chunk out of Lacurad's back, throwing some of Matthias' crewmen off into the sky with piles of stinking green-tinged blood and rotten coal hair. The black bat screeched and twisted that more people threatened to spill into the sky—only the shinobi stopped them, gripping its flesh with chakra and holding on to the fully grown men and women with all their strength. Naruto shouted at the bat to regain control, take them down, but it was maddened by pain.
"Sakura-chan!"
The girl went immediately to the damaged area, pressing her hands to the great red crater, she released as much healing chakra as she could manage into it, watching the blood stop, the flesh begin to restitch itself, but it wasn't happening fast enough and she didn't have even a quarter of the amount of anesthetic necessary to numb a wound on a creature of that size.
"DOWN!" Naruto bellowed at the bat.
The beast went down—to the underground lair from which it had been so rudely snatched from, leaving its riders free-floating amidst a cloud of putrid, sulfurous smoke.
The air rushed by Naruto, plunging him into whirling cold, the wind twisting his flight down, cutting at his face and eyes, making the sky and the world seem one. He didn't know how to orient himself, he just tumbled furiously for what seemed like only a few short seconds before he struck something soft and malleable. The world righted itself, he landed on his back, the sky above him all vast and blue and terrifying. The impact drove the air from his lungs, but he fought to get up, to move, a sense of desperate urgency rising in him, knowing that his friends were somewhere, maybe still falling, maybe already dead. He twisted blindly, and thought he saw Ino behind him, until he realized Ino never wore black and certainly had never kicked him in the face, which this person did. Naruto's nose shattered, pain roaring in his ears, splashing red into his face and throughout his mind—he struck back, but received only another strike, which sent him reeling into tunneling blackness, the last sight being the beautiful, horrifying vastness.
------
Naruto awoke, and the blue was still there above him. It seemed farther than before, and redder, though he realized that the redness was not in the sky but the blood that was in his eyes. Then the sky disappeared, and a man replaced it, grinning like the dead.
"So you're awake, hmm? How are you, Kyuubi-brat, hmm?"
Naruto stared blankly at the man for a moment, only seeing the smile—a twisted thing that was more a collection of flesh and teeth than a true smile—and then saw the rest of him, and recognized him.
"You're the bastard who killed Gaara," he muttered.
"And you're the bastard who killed me, hmm?" The eye was glassier than before, like a polished precious stone set inside a gleaming pearl. Perhaps that was why it didn't smile. It didn't seem real.
"Killed…?"
"Remember, hmm?" The man seemed delighted, but it seemed wrong, like it was almost musical and the man's voice was a collection of strings like a piano, the emotion conveyed simply through the vibration of a few man-made strings.
"Sort of," Naruto confessed, though he did remember, because he'd never forget the face of the man who had killed Gaara and nearly killed Mekkatorque. But the way the man's smile faltered made his lie a little bit worth it. "Whaddya want?"
"That's obvious, Kyuubi-brat, isn't it? I didn't think they'd send you, but apparently Sasori was quite right in thinking that you'd be the one they sent. That's great, though, but I'd hoped for a bit more of a show from you, hmm. It'd make things a lot easier for all of us, though I think that if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't do it myself, I'd blow off your head right now and send you and that disgusting monster in your stomach off to the next world…hmm." The face came closer, and Naruto twisted to avoid seeing it any better than he did. The man's voice was sickening to hear, almost human but not, and his features as creepy as if somebody had made a doll of him.
"Can't bear to look at me, hmm? Not many can, anymore. I guess Sasori-danna," the honorific sounded more like a swear—"isn't as good of a sculptor as he thought he might be. Can't even get my voice right, you know?" It sounded hilarious to him, and abruptly the man began to laugh. "I'm not even real, hmm!"
Naruto didn't argue. His eyes searched, and he found that they were moving; the steady beating of the clay golem's wings and the slowly drifting clouds above and below, and the whispering wind with its cool touch made that clear. He couldn't see the ground, though—all he could see was blue, and the man's not-quite right face. He closed his eyes.
"Scared?"
Naruto's eyes flew open, and he glared intensely at the man. It seemed to make him even happier. "I'm not scared, asshole."
"No…hmm? What about your friends, hmm? Are you scared for them?"
Naruto remembered. His heart nearly stopped. "Where are they?"
"Dead, hmm. Nobody picked them up. I even went down and checked. They're all splattered against the rocks, it was a good sight. Like they'd been detonated, like one of my works of art, hmm! But dead, well and truly dead, hmm."
Naruto met his eyes again, and once again the man seemed delighted, the vibrating strings pitching a nice falsetto as he giggled. "You're lying," Naruto said.
"Do I sound…" the man's voice grew colder than Naruto would've thought such a smiling face could project, "…like I have anything to lie about? What's the point of lying…hmm? I never lie about art, never, hmm! The only thing I hated about that sight was its permanency."
"You're lying," Naruto said again.
"Believe what you want, hmm. They're gone." The man's voice lingered on the final word, as if savoring a taste.
"You might not know it," Naruto's breath was soft, unlabored. "But you're lying." He knew it. Anger broiled in him at the man's confidence, but it was only because of that. They wouldn't die, not like that, it was impossible. It had to be. There was no way they could die like that, not now, not so…unceremoniously.
The man's eyebrow rose. "Not even shinobi can survive falls that high, hmm. Nobody in your group could fly, not like me, hmm." The man stood, and now Naruto saw the rest of his body, veiled in the black cloak. He stood like a giant against the sky.
"You're lying," Naruto said, one final time. He struggled to stand. "Bastard."
The man stomped on Naruto's face, and all went black again.
-----
When Naruto next woke, he was not in the air anymore. The blue was gone, the wind halted, the coolness now stinking, muggy, oppressive. The bright light was now smoky darkness, and not even its great reach extended to wherever Naruto had ended up. Wherever it was, it stunk mightily, though that might've just been the blood that filled Naruto's crushed nostrils and mouth and covered his eyes and made his face sticky, warm and quite unpleasant. Despite that, he managed to sit up, though he fell back almost immediately, punched by a swift bought of nausea and dizziness.
He wasn't sure what caused it: the kick to the face or the words that despite Naruto's convictions, had needled their way into his thoughts and were making every effort to poison his confidence, turning it to weakness and defeat.
"They're dead."
He shook his head. Get up, he decided, and then think that through.
But what was the point of getting up if there was nobody left?
Not that, he thought, and got up, stumbling a bit, but managing to stand this time despite the swiftly rising bile in his throat. He forced it down, coughed a few times, and then looked about. It was a dirty cell, lined with straw and refuse that might've been months old, a ratty bed and a chamberpot that might've once been something's skull. The blackness swallowed everything else—beyond the bars, he saw nothing. There was no window.
He'd seen this room before, he was sure. Not that specific cell, but this was probably the dungeon that Thrall had grudgingly built beneath his hold, meant to hold only the worst criminals for very short periods of time. Naruto had seen it once in his time in Orgrimmar, and even then it had been hardly more than a few minutes.
He wiped the blood from his nose, sniffling a few times and then retching as he got a mouthful of blood and mucus. He spent the next few moments adjusting his face, relaxing as the Kyuubi's unwitting chakra entered and repaired the damage. The pain lessened, the nausea passed, and Naruto began to think.
They'd kept him alive. It was obvious why, though—they needed the Kyuubi. He didn't know how they planned to get it, or when they did, but that gave him some time to think of a way to get out of this place. He squinted through the darkness, wishing he had his goggles. He checked himself just to make sure—but his weapons and his other tools had been removed. They were probably upstairs somewhere.
He squatted for a few moments, frowning into the darkness, wondering what lay beyond it. He smelt nothing but the stale air and the rotten straw and dung; if there was anyone else down here, they either had no smell of their own or they had been down here so long that theirs was the same as the dungeon's. He thought of calling out, but wasn't sure if he should. It might tell Akatsuki that he was awake. He didn't want them down here again, especially after one of them had kicked him not once, but twice. In the face, as well. Bastard.
Though, he had to feel a little sorry for the clay-bombing man—in a strange way, at least. Because of Naruto, that man was no longer a man at all. He'd been turned into something not-human by his own partner, if his own partner was, indeed, still the crazy puppet-master that Sakura had claimed he was. What kind of monsters were these guys? Where they actually human? Could something that possessed that kind of power—and the desire to use such a power—really be considered human?
He didn't think so, but he supposed human was relative, anyways. Besides, he didn't care much to think of that right now. It didn't matter if they were human or not. They'd still fall, once he got the chance to get out and kick their asses again. He grit his teeth, and then, wondering if it could be that easy, approached the bars and struck out with all of his strength.
The bars did not budge. They were made of bone, and solid as iron, and only hurt his hand. Nodding, he dried something else. Reaching out, he held a hand open and concentrated. He felt chakra began to gather beneath the surface of his palm, swirling already, but when he attempted to push it out, attempted to form it into the swirling sphere of death he'd used for ages, nothing happened.
Grunting, Naruto tried harder. It was like trying to force a tree trunk through a pinhole, though. It began to burn, and his skin began to bleed, the whirling chakra within cutting the inside of his hand in an attempt to get out and obey.
Finally, he stopped and sat back, staring at it angrily, and wincing. He could mould chakra, but it wouldn't leave his body. He searched himself, quickly to see if there was anything on his person which would prevent him from doing that, but there was nothing. So he sat back, and waited a while longer, frowning at the bars of the cell, thinking. He looked around, wondering if there was something about the cell itself. Probably. If the most dangerous criminals were held here, then Thrall would want insurance—something to keep them from using whatever power they possessed to get free.
He grunted, and crossed his arms. What now?
He called out: "ANYBODY THERE?"
He waited a few minutes, but heard only the general creaking of something old. The dungeons had survived Rend Blackhand's destructive rampage, and were as old as Orgrimmar. But the walls must've been thick. He couldn't hear anything.
He tried looking for Tsuwabuki's bond. But there was nothing—he was cut off from even that. But that didn't matter, as she was a world away in Stormwind protecting Kira. He cursed, and then sat back and thought some more, wondering how to approach this. He got up again, forced some chakra into his hand, and then ran at the bars.
He sat back down again a few minutes later with a bruised hand and the sound of his attempt to smash the bars reverberating throughout the stony cage. Whatever bone it was made of, it wasn't something he could break, apparently.
He sat and watched the darkness, then, not knowing how long he was there. The other aches in his body—caused by the crash and the fall and the Akatsuki member's beatings, gradually faded until the only thing that bothered him was the smell, the sounds, and the darkness. Even that eventually faded, and he simply watched and waited.
Hours later, he heard movement. He lifted his head, letting his ears seek out the fine nuances of the person's movement. They were light steps, quickly taken, and it didn't take long for a figure to melt out of the darkness, short and slim.
"Ah, Deidara told me of you, how pleasant that you're here. This makes things quite easy, although I have to say, you did come at a bad time."
The voice was unfamiliar to Naruto, but he had to be Akatsuki, as there were no other humans in Orgrimmar. "You're that Sasori guy, aren't you? The one that Sakura-chan told me about."
"Sakura-chan? Ah, you must mean the pink-haired girl who fought alongside my grandmother." Naruto could only see a vague outline of the man in the darkness, seeing only his head tilt thoughtfully. His words reflected contented surprise, a man perpetually aiming to please his prey just before he killed them.
"Why is it a bad time?" Naruto stayed where he was. Even though he couldn't see the man, he felt the same revulsion he did from Deidara. This man wasn't right. He didn't even need to see a smile for that to be clear.
"Because I have other things to do. I can't be bothered doing the ritual that you're involved in," Sasori sighed, as if contemplating the great injustices of the world. "But I suppose it would be fine to keep you here for a time, especially when I have no need to worry about your companions arriving. I might even be able to have some fun with you. Perhaps, oh, this could be possible, yes, I think…" Naruto narrowed his eyes. The man's head tilted again, and he emitted a soft chuckle.
"Oh yes, that could be a way to test if he's ready or not. I always love a good show, too." Sasori nodded. "Yes, that should be fine. I'll come back for you when the time is ready." He turned, making his way back into darkness.
"Hey!" Naruto cried. "Come back! Bastard! What are you going to do?"
"That would spoil the show," the man's lingering voice wafted back, cheerfully enigmatic, infuriatingly calm.
"You'll see."
-------
The air was hot, dry; scorched red by the golden sun and possessing only a slight breeze from the sea, three miles south. Great mesas erupted all around, towering into the sky, making it impossible to see anything save for great walls of rock, dotted with dusty branches of dying trees, scant few nests where some birds had once attempted to make families, but were now empty and alone.
It was here that Sakura awoke, crowed amongst the other members of her group, in a cave that offered them some cool respite from the sun and the dry, afternoon air.
Grunting, she pulled herself out of the wedge of rock she had slept against, and lightly moved out into the canyon, stretching as she did. The ground was dusty, but hard and easy to move on quickly, which had served them well when the harpies had attacked the previous day. Naruto had talked about those creatures once, and Sakura hadn't believed much of them until they had pursued them for nearly ten miles from their crash site, until they'd managed to lose the flock within the winding canyons they were not lost among.
Making sure no one was looking, she jumped down and hid behind a canyon to go to the bathroom, and when she'd finished she set off in search of something to eat. They had reserve food, including the technique Naruto had taught her, but neither would last and she didn't want to waste chakra unnecessarily. Besides, it didn't work so well anyways, and never left her feeling full or energized. The canyon had proved to be full of food, you just had to know where to look.
She kept her eyes on the skies, however. The harpies might be anywhere. She was sure they'd have been able to take them on, given enough time, but not only did they not have that but the crash had made them weak, and had injured them, and even she hadn't yet fully recovered from using so much chakra in summoning Katsuyu to cushion their fall.
The first day had been torture, just running from the swarm that had appeared so suddenly after their ploy had worked—obviously, harpies ate whatever they could get. After Sakura, Hinata and Ino had exhausted their supplies of blood pills in creating the effect that they had been smashed to bits on the rocks, they'd been set upon by the flock of bird women intending to make a meal of their corpses. When they'd found out their prey had not yet died, they seemed even more excited about the prospect of a meal.
After they'd lost the harpies, they'd realized they'd lost themselves as well. Not even Matthias knew anything about the snaking canyons that they had wandered through for two days already, attempting to find some way of getting out.
Without Matthias, as well.
The captain planned to return to the wreckage of his zeppelin. "Ain't our fight," he told them, when they'd been eager to get to Orgrimmar. "Don't even know where it is, in relation to where we are."
"The harpies might've gone back there!" Sakura had shouted.
"So be it," the man looked nothing like he once had. He was pale, thin, and covered in dirt and blood he looked like nothing more than the smuggler he claimed to be. Worst of all, his eyes had died with his ship and most of his crew. "I'd rather get picked off by carrion birds than go back to what I was like before me zeppelin. I was nothing before then, I'm nothing now. That ship was my soul, my one true thing, and now it's gone, you know? Can't repair it, getting a new one would be like trying to buy a new life. You don't buy life, you forge it, and you live it. I forged my life in that zeppelin and I swore that they day it fell was the day I did too."
"Yes, but—" Sakura flailed for words, but it was one time when they simply wouldn't come.
"It's his decision," Neji's voice was as hard as his eyes. "We'd best be going, too, Sakura." Because Asuma and Kurenai had not gone with them, he'd assumed the position of team leader, according to rank. While Sakura didn't doubt he'd be a great team leader, she could've smacked him at that moment. There was some things that geniuses just couldn't understand!
"But Naruto—" Sakura began again, but this time, Matthias cut her off.
"Would tell me ta start a new life, to do live and try to forge a new one. Don't work like that, and I think he'd say different if I told him I made a promise to myself and to my ship, and he knows how sacred promises are, lass." His dead eyes smiled a little then, and he said in a softer voice. "I'll miss the lad, though. Great banter he was. Tell him I'm glad I met him. I've met only a few people like him in my life and I've never forgotten a one of them. He made my life interesting." He chuckled, but it was like the chuckle of a dying man. "Well, I'll be seeing you."
He went off, calling to his remaining crew. "Alrigh' lads, time to head back, give our girl a proper burial! Then you can fuck off, for all I care!"
That was the last time they saw him, for he and his crew left that night.
We're shinobi, she thought. It should be easy. No emotions, nothing. So why did she feel so bitter, angry so annoyed? And why wasn't she able to keep all that to herself, like everyone else was?
And when would they get out of this shithole, and find Naruto? He suddenly knew how he felt all those times he'd been so eager to help, to get to wherever they were going to beat up the bad guys as fast as he could to save his friends. She felt like doing that, right now, and even though she was able to suppress it, it lingered like a bleeding sore in her heart.
She looked up and around her. The walls were too hard to latch on with chakra—rocks came loose with each step, and you couldn't get two feet without a rock giving way. Some places were so huge and so high it was impossible to even contemplate scaling the walls.
Neji and Hinata had their Byakugan, however. That helped, but still they had to walk, and in the day it was dangerous—the heat was too much, the harpies too frequent. At night, it was cold, frosty nearly but it was better to move then, and even then, the paths were so winding that even with the ability to see through walls it'd take them days by foot to get out of the canyons.
Then there were the buzzards, which flocked to the little outcroppings—huge birds that made the vultures they'd seen in their own world look like pidgeons in size. They were hideous beasts, red-headed, pimply and perpetually starving-thin. They watched their progress with eagerness, knowing that it wouldn't be long before something got them.
Of course, they made great meals. Neji had been the one to suggest eating them, surprisingly. They were delicious.
"Are you g-going somewhere, Sakura-san?" Sakura turned towards Hinata's soft voice, now only vaguely stuttering, and smiled at the shy girl.
"Yes," she said. "Going to get some food, I suppose, while everyone else is asleep."
"Aren't you h-hot?" Hinata clearly was. She'd shed, much to her embarrassment, her heavy overcoat. Sakura would've normally been jealous of the way Hinata's shirt clung so closely to her large chest, but it was too hot to get worked up about it, and she was getting used to the fact that her breasts would never be as Tsunadean as she'd hoped they would be.
"Of course," Sakura said, smiling. "You?"
"Very much," the girl was red as ever, but it was the distinctly unhealthy glow of somebody who'd been in the sun too long, rather than embarrassment. "Would you mind if…?"
"I could use the company," Sakura said, smiling. "And somebody with range as well. I don't have many kunai to spare, to tell you the truth."
"O-of course." They walked along, sticking close to the walls so that any harpies flying overhead wouldn't be able to see them as clearly. "I-I, actually…"
Sakura glanced over at her, blinking. "What's up?"
"It's just, well, I have a q-question, I've been meaning to ask for a-awhile, but y-you know, I just…" Hinata swallowed. "I'm sorry, I should be b-better at this by now."
"It's fine," Sakura said, smiling. "No rush."
"I f-feel stupid sometimes, stuttering like t-this," Hinata said, quietly, avoiding Sakura's eyes. "I c-can talk okay with Kurenai-sensei, and K-Kiba-kun and S-Shino-kun, but…" She shrugged. "It's h-hard with others…"
"Even Neji?"
"I'm o-okay with him," Hinata said, smiling. "B-better than before, at a-any rate."
"But not so good with me, eh?"
Hinata blushed a little. "I-I'm sorry—"
"Don't be," Sakura said, smiling a little. "You shouldn't have to be so formal around me, either. We've been through a lot, you know? We're friends, I suspect." She glanced at Hinata. "Don't you think so?"
"Y-yes, of course!" Hinata wrung her hands, glancing skywards for a moment. The smell of dust and salt hit them hard with a sudden rush of wind whistling through the canyon. The two of them stopped for a moment, and glanced up towards the walls of the canyon. They saw nests, but no birds. They moved on.
"So what question did you have?"
"Uhm, well," Hinata fought for words for a moment. She frowned, wrung her hands a little more, and then nodded to herself and said, "It's about N-N-Naruto-kun."
Sakura's heart beat a little faster. "Ah, really?"
"Y-yes," she said. "Y-you like him, don't you?"
Sakura swallowed, and didn't say anything, hoping to spot a buzzard or two to avoid the question. No such luck. She sighed, and looked back at Hinata. "Well, perhaps a little, but—"
"Oh."
Sakura blinked, looking again at Hinata. It was the first definite thing he'd heard the girl utter; without trace of indecision, or that peculiar softness. There was something in it.
"I j-just," Hinata's battle with words rage silently again. "I m-mean, it should b-be obvious, s-shouldn't?"
"You mean," Sakura said slowly, "about your feelings for him?"
"Yes."
Sakura nodded a little. "Yes, I suppose it was." She gave the other girl a nervous smile. "Was that your question?"
Hinata shook her head. "N-no, not really." She swallowed again. "Do y-you think…do you think I-I should g-give up on him?"
Sakura swallowed. Why was she asking Sakura this? Why not ask somebody else, like Kurenai or Ino or Tenten or even Shino or Kiba or—
"What, um, do you think you should do?"
Hinata watched her, gulping. "I d-don't know."
"Right, that's why you're asking," Sakura said in a low voice to herself, biting her lip. She looked at Hinata again. "Do you still, er, like him?"
"I d-don't know."
Sakura sucked in her breath. "You don't know?"
"I-I've…" Hinata paid close attention to the walls again, hoping desperately to see some buzzards, wondering if there was going to be anything to derail this topic that for some reason she'd saw fit to bring up when Naruto had been spirited away to another place, and might not even be alive at the moment, and for some reason it seemed so much more damn important than finding a way out of this place and finding Naruto and freeing him from whatever peril he might be in.
They'd made an agreement on the first night, after they'd shaken off the harpies. They wouldn't rush. Naruto might be in danger, but he might not—there were a lot of unknowns about the situation, but one unknown gave them comfort—and that was Naruto himself. The boy was utterly unpredictable, even by his friends, and he might already have escaped by now and freed the entire city of Orgrimmar.
Probably not, though.
Rushing would get them killed. It would cause them unnecessary stress, expend energy that they needed to conserve.
And even though every single one of them wanted to rush, they wouldn't.
They couldn't.
"I…" Hinata said again, after a moment. "I've admired h-him, for s-so long. He inspired m-me to d-do my best in e-everything, he m-made it worth it t-to be a shinobi, for the l-longest time. When he d-disappeared here, it made me s-so sad, so h-helpless—I wanted to b-be able to do anything, to be a-able to help him c-come back. When he d-did, I was s-so happy, but then there w-was Kira-sama, and she was s-so amazing and s-so beautiful and it was clear that she liked him, and t-then I saw you talking to him a few times, and the l-look you had on your face and t-then you went on a date with him and—" Her breath slowed. "And…"
"A-ah," Sakura said, before she could finish. Her heart was thumping again. What look on her face? She'd had a look on her face? What was it?
"F-Forgive me…" Hinata gulped. "I didn't mean to b-bring it up like this. It's t-too weird a situation." She fell silent.
"No," Sakura said, "it was a perfectly natural time to bring it up, and it's better to get it out of your system if it's bothering you. Better than having something distract you in battle, you know?"
"Y-yeah," Hinata's pearl eyes lowered, and she blushed in embarrassment. "What a shinobi I am…"
"That's not what I meant—"
A distant call shattered their conversation. Hinata swallowed, and with a whisper Sakura asked her to activate her Byakugan. It took her a moment to calm herself, and then release the chakra necessary, and when her eyes lit up and her face dissolved into horror, Sakura realized that the harpies had returned.
"The o-others!"
They bolted. It took them mere minutes to return to their hiding place, and when they had the others were already up, alert, ready. Neji cursed them for being off so long, and they geared up to move, the hot desert sun roaring down upon them as they went.
------
Naruto had no idea how long he waited, and although water was brought to him frequently (by who he had no idea) he was not fed and by the time they came to get him he was weak and furious, on his hands and knees ready to make a bolt for it as soon as they made a misstep.
Orcs came for him.
They weren't under their own control, he realized, though. They had that dimness of the eyes and starkness of the faces that Yura had possessed, way back when he'd fought the man, in pursuit of Gaara. It made their faces seem terrifying—there's were faces that seemed built for anger, for wrinkles and snarls, not smooth and emotionless, filled with ice and not fire.
They were dressed in the armor of Thrall's personal elite, the Kok'ron, and they possessed their strength as well. He tried to knock one out with his bare hands when they came in, only to get an aching fist and a backhand to the face. They then grabbed him and literally carried him out of the cell, in chains.
Out of the darkness bloomed stairs, and at the top of the stairs a door. Then he began to recognize things—the skin-lined hallways of doors that led to Thrall's throne room, the shaman's inner sanctum built into the entrance hall, and then out into the streets of the Valley of Wisdom, which were bare of life and activity so much so that it disturbed Naruto. An Orgrimmar without life was not Orgrimmar. It looked like a skeleton bleached in the desert sun.
Through the streets he was marched. They saw no one, but Naruto could smell people—in the windows of houses, hiding in alleyways, scurrying across the paths of the marching Kok'ron, who paid no mind to the gutterfolk. These were the refuse of any city—rising up from the darker corners when the rest of the inhabitants had long gone.
But where…?
Finally, they reached it. The great fortress, Naruto knew it well.
So I'm here again, he thought. When was it…? Yeah, he suddenly realized. This was the first place I ever ended up in this city.
The gate was open, unguarded, but nobody would really have any reason to break into this building. It was only down a hall, and out into the open before he recognized anything else. The wide, circular arena stood before him, older and unused. The stands were empty, save for the far end, where the Warchief's balcony lay.
The Kok'ron wasted no time. They took him to the edge and hefted him, unceremoniously, into the arena. He landed on his feet, blinking, still trying to get used to the light and the piercing rays of the sun, which came through the top of the arena in a focused ray as if to show its occupants the truth of its brutality. He thought about escaping but then realized it wouldn't do much good.
He watched the red-haired Akatsuki member, who sat beneath a little tarp to shield off the sun. Naruto didn't have to see the full outline of his face to realize he was still smiling that same smile that had been hinted at in the darkness. He walked forwards, into the center of the ring, keeping his eyes trained tightly on the man.
"See how much fun this is going to be?" Sasori's enthusiasm turned to ashes as he spoke. Naruto didn't think a man like him could be interested in anything.
"So who am I going to fight? You?" Naruto asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Ah, most likely not," Sasori gave a little shake of his head. "No, I have someone much better in mind, more appropriate for this situation."
Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Oh yeah?"
The man nodded, and smiled. He pointed across the arena, behind Naruto, to where the gates that led fighters into the arena normally. Naruto turned and saw an orc, clad all in armor, standing there, watching him.
Naruto swallowed, a sudden chill running down his spine.
"You've gotta be kidding…"
"I most assuredly am not," Sasori said. "Let's begin this show of puppets, shall we?"
Thrall raised his Doomhammer, and without further ado, charged.
Late, late, late, late, late.
Yes, I know.
No excuse, other than writer's block (of a sorts) and no time. Been in Finland for a while as well, which didn't help things.
But at least it's out, yeah?
Tell me anything that's wrong with the chapter, and I'll take note of it and fix it up next time. Stylistically, at least. I'm aiming for criticism, since it's the best way for my writing to improve. You guys are good at doing that, these days.
It makes me remember the old days, sometimes.
Hope you guys have been well. Another chapter will be out, eventually. Hope you can wait! Hope this one was worth it, as well.
All the best,
General Grievous